What Learning An Instrument Taught Me About Psychotherapy
"The harp is such a beautiful instrument," a friend mused. "It's impossible to make it sound bad!" "Try me," I thought. I spend a lot of my time as a therapist busting up what my clients deem "impossible." I wasn't going to drop that defiance now. I don't know what was going through my mind the day I decided to sign up for lessons. I had spent some time in the park with a friend, and she brought her travel harp along. As she played for me, surrounded by nature in the middle of our busy city, I felt stress and strain drain out of me. I decided this was something I should be doing every day.
Fast-forward a couple months: I'm sitting in my living room, trying to eke out a simple song. The windows are open, and my neighbors get the "treat" of my practice session. I pluck a couple of sweet notes before my finger slams into the wrong string, making some kind of jarring noise. I mutter a curse, and try again a few times. I realize the tension is getting the better of me and I yell a little bit and decide to take a break. Nothing about this is particularly graceful. I realized, after a little while, that this is a lot like going to therapy.
We decide that we're going to change something. It'll reduce our stress and pain and make our lives so much more beautiful. It does- but often not without some cursing and mistakes along the way.
Starting from zero
In my first week, I played "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" a few dozen times. It was one of only two songs I could play. It was enough for me just to experience those rare moments where an actually nice and satisfying tone came out of my instrument. In good therapy, you get little glimpses about who you can become, even early on when everything is rough. You don't need to know how to get from point A to point B. The real miracle is realizing that something that might be your point B might truly exist.
Mistakes are crucial
You might call the song "Twinkle Twinkle Little &^%$!" That's what the neighbors might hear during a practice session. I'll play through a song once or twice and my fingers will trip over themselves. I'll try again- and realize that they're tripping over themselves in the same place. It's a transition from one phrase to the next that just isn't natural to me. So I zoom in on the place where I'm tripping. I remind myself to be gentle and loving, take a deep breath, and work through just that section a few times over. From this space, I might discover that my ring finger is slamming into my thumb on the G string. This is what I do with clients nearly every session that I work with them. We find places in their inner lives- perhaps their inner songs- where things just aren't flowing, where things seem rigid and stuck. We take deep breaths and create a loving, gentle space in which we examine the split second where everything falls apart. Before we can correct it, we have to get curious about it. We have to be loving, because almost nothing changes when we approach something with anger- but it’s totally cool to curse a few times along the way.
It feels fantastic when you finally get it
After a few run-throughs of that difficult phrase in my song, after I relax and get curious about where I'm making the mistake, it all finally clicks. My fingers might glide over one another a little more gracefully, and actually land on the note they were aiming for. At this point, I usually stop, look around, and exclaim "Did anyone catch that?!" with absolute bewilderment. I might be able to do it again once or twice, or I might need to trip up again. It's fine either way- it feels glorious, and I'm on my way. Therapy, too, is all about these little micro-victories. If you’re learning to say “no” to people who push your boundaries, you might have to experience yourself saying “uhh… okay” a few times before all the pieces come together to form that first glorious “no.” But once you’ve found your way there once, it’s so much easier to get back to that place, and it feels amazing.
One day, you realize you're a LOT better
I can't say I'm playing "Twinkle, Twinkle" with ease these days- because I'm not playing it. I've graduated onto slightly more complex songs. Sometimes I even get into that awesome flow where songs actually sound nice and I do feel moved, restored, and destressed by my own music. Sometimes. Slowing down and allowing mistakes to work themselves into skill creates these moments. Mastering a song is often just a matter of getting through a handful of those. Getting better is just being willing to go through lots of those mistakes- as many as it takes. I imagine I'll have thousands more of those moments on this journey. Some of my therapy clients have a lot of work to get through. It might be serious trauma or multi-generational mental illness. I remind them that a good hike has a few vistas, not just the one that's at the top of the mountain. There's a lot of steps and hard work to get to a gorgeous view, and even if there's more to go, you're missing out by not taking a few moments to enjoy how far you've come.